In 2044, computer hackers destroy the research records of Ambro, the largest and most powerful drug company. Before he can be caught, the lead hacker injects himself with a drug and disappears. Twenty years earlier, Frank Grieves, a former addict and current police officer, discovers a body at Ambro's corporate headquarters. Perplexed as to why his DNA scanner can not identify the body, Grieves becomes obsessed with solving the mystery. The only clue he has is the word " Morlock " hidden on the body. Grieves' superior, Nolan, does not approve of his investigation and instead orders him to work on busting the few remaining street dealers, who operate a shrinking black market since the legalisation of all narcotics. When Grieves continues his investigation, Ambro puts pressure on the police to rein him in. Eddie Rankin, Grieves' friend and a medical examiner, tells him that an unidentified drug was found in the man's body. Before Grieves or Rankin can examine it further, Ambro has the body destroyed. Against orders, Grieves returns to the site of the crime in search of more clues, where he recovers a young woman, Eva Gray, who has apparently been targeted for assassination by unknown forces. Grieves saves her life, only to find that Gray's assailant has disappeared into thin air. Grieves attempts to find a place to hide Gray, but his estranged wife, Angie, refuses to help. Gray, who is also unidentifiable, escapes his custody when he is distracted. When pushed, Rankin reveals he knows a scientist, Yuri Sidorov, who may be able to identify the unknown drug. After paying off Rankin's debt to Sidorov, the scientist tells him to return in twenty-four hours. After experiencing further obstruction from Ambro's security and his superiors, Grieves returns early to demand answers from Sidorov. There, he finds Gray, who, after Grieves threatens to harm Sidorov, reveals that she is a time-traveller from 2044. Because she is yet to be born, she has no record in Grieves' DNA database. Grieves dismisses this as the ravings of a junkie and demands to know what Ambro has planned, which he believes may be an experimental drug codenamed "Morlock". Although taken aback that he knows of the word, Gray sticks to her story. Ambro attacks Grieves as he transports Gray. Suddenly, reinforcements appear out of nowhere, disable Ambro's security forces, and disappear with Gray after injecting her with a drug. After Ambro goons attempt to kidnap his son, Grieves realises that the body he found earlier is the adult version of his 9-year-old son, Ben. "Morlock" is a code word based on The Time Machine, a book that Grieves gave to Ben. Now believing Gray's story, Grieves seeks help from Rankin, who refuses to become further involved. After Grieves leaves, Ambro orders the police to kill Rankin and kidnap Sidorov. Grieves has his family flee the city, and, after confronting Nolan, Grieves is also captured. Todd Ambro explains that they need Ben, as he will perfect their time-travelling drug, which is currently flawed in a way that prevents people from staying long in their destination unless they are dead. Ambro demonstrates by killing Sidorov and sending his body elsewhere in time. Desperate to protect his company's future, Ambro demands the police torture Ben's location from Grieves. After the others leave, Nolan sets Grieves free, saying that he knows Ambro will kill him next as a security threat. Nolan proposes they work together to escape, but Grieves instead forces one of Ambro's scientists to inject him with the time-travelling drug. Suddenly in 2044, Grieves speaks to his now-adult son and reinforces how important his mission is. Back in 2024, Grieves once again discovers the body at Ambro's headquarters, but this time it is his own body, not his son's.

In 1996 Brooklyn, Molly Wright witnesses her parents being neuralyzed by agents of Men in Black after they see an alien in their home. Molly helps the alien escape, avoiding neuralyzation herself. Twenty-three years later, rejected from government agencies due to her "delusions" regarding alien life, Molly tracks down an alien landing and follows MIB agents to their headquarters in New York City. Caught entering the agency, Molly makes an impression on Agent O after revealing she had bypassed neuralyzation, arguing that her obsessive search for them makes her "perfect" for the job and she has no life outside her search for the agency. She is awarded probationary agent status as "Agent M" and assigned to the organization's London branch. There, M meets High T, head of the London branch, and Agent H. M learns that H and T fought off an invasion of the Hive, a parasitic race who invade planets by merging with the DNA of the conquered species, at the Eiffel Tower in 2016, using a wormhole included in the original migration to Earth. H has since become unconcerned with his duties and only keeping his job due to High T covering for him. M arranges for herself to be assigned to assist H in his meeting with alien royalty Vungus the Ugly, H's close friend. During their night out with Vungus, they are accosted by mysterious alien Twins able to manifest as pure energy. The Twins fatally injure Vungus, who gives M a strange crystal before he dies, claiming that H has changed since they last met and cannot be trusted. M points out that few people knew Vungus' location, and he was likely betrayed by one of the agents present when High T assigned H to guard him. Nervous at the possibility of a traitor within MIB, High T assigns Agents C and M to investigate while H is demoted to desk duty, with evidence suggesting that the Twins had DNA traces of the Hive. H convinces M to join him in following a lead to Marrakesh, where they recover "Pawny", the last survivor of a small group of aliens attacked by the Twins. Pawny pledges loyalty to M, and they are trapped by MIB agents coordinated by C, who recovered video footage of Vungus passing the crystal to M and believes she is the traitor. With the aid of alien contacts Nasr and Bassam, H escapes with M and Pawny on a rocket-powered bike, and they learn that Vungus' crystal is a weapon powered by a compressed blue giant. As they repair the damaged bike, Bassam steals the weapon and takes it to H's ex-girlfriend Riza Stavros, an alien arms dealer. Traveling to Riza's island fortress, the trio attempts to infiltrate the base, but is caught by Riza and her bodyguard Luca Brasi. Luca, the alien M rescued as a child, returns the favor by allowing them to leave with the weapon while he keeps Riza contained. The three are cornered by the Twins, who are killed by High T and a group of agents. Although the case appears concluded, H and M review the evidence and realize that the Twins' phrases suggest they required the weapon to use against the Hive, especially when the only evidence of Hive DNA was provided by High T. They discover High T has deleted the case file and not sent the weapon to evidence, and has gone to the Eiffel Tower with the weapon. C also realizes High T's deception and allows H and M to follow High T to the Eiffel Tower. As they travel to the reopened wormhole, M's questioning of H's memory of the Hive's defeat reveals he was neuralyzed when the Hive converted T into one of their own during the battle. The High T/Hive hybrid activates a wormhole to draw the Hive to Earth, but H draws out High T's true personality long enough for M, with the help of Pawny, to use the weapon at full capacity to destroy both the hybrid and the Hive infestation trying to reach Earth. With the truth of T's conversion exposed, Agent O joins H and M in Paris, where she grants M full agent status and appoints H probationary head of MIB's London branch.

In the days leading up to the Apollo 11 Moon landing, CIA agent Tom Kidman is tasked with hiring Stanley Kubrick to film a fake moonwalk, in the event the astronauts fail in their mission. The CIA views the Moon landing as a potential ideological victory over the Soviet Union, necessary for American morale. The CIA gives Kidman a large sum of cash as an incentive for Kubrick, and orders him to murder Kubrick when the film is complete to prevent the story from leaking. Unbeknownst to the CIA, Kidman is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to his time in Vietnam, and responds to any frustration with extreme violence. Kidman travels to England to speak with Kubrick's agent, only to accidentally hold a meeting with the agent's cousin, Jonny Thorpe, a struggling band promoter in debt to an East End gangster named the Iron Monger. Jonny agrees to arrange a sit-down between Kidman and Kubrick, then convinces his stoner roommate Leon to pose as the director. Leon and Kidman meet, and Jonny accepts the briefcase of money, promising the movie will be made. Thinking Kidman is simply a Hollywood producer, the pair go on a spending spree before the Iron Monger's henchman break into Jonny's house, beat him, and steal the briefcase. Kidman sees Stanley Kubrick on television and realizes he's been duped. He confronts Jonny, who confesses his scheme. Seeing an opportunity to establish himself as a success, Jonny promises that a friend of his, a director named Renatus, can film a fake Moon landing. Jonny takes Kidman to meet Renatus at the director's mansion, which he has turned into a commune. Thinking he's being hired for an art project, Renatus accepts. Meanwhile, a hippie girl named Ella takes an interest in Kidman. Kidman takes Jonny to confront the Iron Monger and get the briefcase of money back. Rather than negotiate with the Iron Monger, Kidman murders several of his henchmen and takes the briefcase back. Production is stalled when Renatus insists on approaching the film as a piece of performance art, intending to include several artistic flourishes. To show off his alleged immunity to marijuana, Kidman takes a hit from a bong, which turns out to have been laced with opium. To help him recover from its effects, Ella gives him LSD, sending Kidman on a bad trip, after which he has sex with Ella. In the throes of his trip, Kidman tells Ella and Leon he no longer feels compelled to solve his problems with violence. Afterwards, he makes an incoherent call to the CIA, attempting to update them on his status. Alarmed by Kidman's call, the CIA sends several agents to England. They take the commune hostage and force everyone to begin filming the fake Moon landing. Jonny and Leon take on the roles of the astronauts; Leon, nervous at the prospect of being on television, gets high and begins having a trip on set, stumbling around the fake Moon surface. The Iron Monger's gang arrive and engage in a deadly shoot-out with the CIA. During this the fake footage is relayed to CIA headquarters where they are shocked by the badly acted moon landing recreation. Jonny goes to help Kidman defeat the Iron Monger gang but only manages to distract the last CIA agent who is about to kill Kidman. After Kidman kills the Iron Monger and the last CIA operative he lies to a dazed Jonny 'you got him'. Now wanted by the CIA, Jonny, Leon, Kidman and Ella flee England. A montage shows news clips of American life through the 1960s, culminating with Apollo 11 reaching the Moon. In Spain, Jonny, Leon, Ella and Kidman enter a bar in time to watch the Moon landing with several villagers where they are unable to tell if they are watching the real or fake footage.

At a Los Angeles rail yard, petty thief Louis "Lou" Bloom attacks a guard, taking his watch and stealing manhole covers, fencing, and other materials. While trying to sell the stolen materials at a scrap yard, Lou asks the foreman for a job. The foreman, knowing everything is stolen, refuses to hire a thief. While driving home, Lou spots a car crash and pulls over. Stringers —freelance photojournalists —arrive and record the burning wreckage and police response. One stringer, Joe Loder, explains to Lou how they sell film footage to local news stations. Joe declines Lou's request for a job. Lou steals an expensive bicycle and pawns it for a camcorder and a police radio scanner. After two unsuccessful attempts at recording incidents, Lou records the aftermath of a fatal carjacking and sells the footage to KWLA 6. The morning news director, Nina Romina, says the station is especially interested in "graphic" footage of accidents and violent crime in affluent, predominantly white areas. Lou hires Rick, a young homeless man desperate for money, as his assistant. To create more dramatic film footage, Lou tampers with crime scenes, in one case moving a body for a better camera angle. As Lou's work gains traction, he buys better equipment and a faster car. Lou is a quick learner and establishes a working relationship with Nina at KWLA6. Knowing Nina's two-year contract is nearly up and that she needs higher ratings to keep her job, he threatens to sell his footage to other stations unless she agrees to a sexual relationship, higher payment, and on-air credit for his footage. Recognizing Lou as a competitor, Joe offers to hire him as his second van to cover the whole LA area, but Lou declines. Joe beats him to an important plane crash story and gloats to Lou. Nina berates Lou, demanding he get better footage to keep their bargain. In the daytime, Lou drives to Joe's house and tampers with his van which is parked outside. Joe is later severely injured in a car crash, and Lou records the aftermath. Lou and Rick arrive before the police at the site of a triple-homicide home invasion in Granada Hills. Lou films the gunmen leaving in a Cadillac Escalade as well as the victims in the house. He presents the footage to the station after editing out the perpetrators. The news staff frets over the ethics of using the footage, but Nina is eager to break the story. In exchange, Lou demands public credit, more money, and that Nina unhesitatingly meet his sexual demands. Police detective Frontieri questions Lou regarding his connection to the home invasion. Lou gives her edited footage of the incident that omits the gunmen. That night, Lou and Rick track one gunman to his house, staking it out. Uneasy, Rick negotiates a raise and promotion, which helps salve his worry. Lou delays calling the police, wanting a more public area for recording the arrest, predicting it will be violent. Alarmed at possible innocents being hurt, Rick reopens negotiation, irritating Lou. He demands half the $50,000 reward money for locating the gunman and threatens to tell the police about Lou withholding evidence. Under duress, Lou is forced to acquiesce. The gunman then leaves and picks up his partner. Lou and Rick follow them to a crowded diner, where Lou calls the police, warning them the suspects are armed. The police arrive, where they shoot and kill one of the gunmen after a police officer is shot, and the other escapes in the Escalade. Lou and Rick follow close behind the pursuing police, filming it, which culminates in a long multiple-car collision. Lou approaches the gunman's crashed vehicle and peers inside, then instructs Rick to film the aftermath, claiming the gunman is dead. Lou sets up for a wide shot. As Rick peers inside the car, he is shot by the gunman. The gunman attempts to flee on foot but is shot dead by arriving police. As Rick lies dying, he accuses Lou of knowing the gunman was alive. Lou, filming Rick, says he cannot work with an untrustworthy employee. Nina is awed by the chase footage and expresses devotion to Lou. The news team discovers that the home invasion was actually the criminals breaking in to steal the homeowner's cocaine stash. Nina holds the story until the following night's news to maximize the story's dramatic impact. Police try to confiscate Lou's footage as evidence, but Nina defends her legal right to withhold it and immediately airs it. Lou voluntarily speaks with Detective Frontieri and fabricates a story about the men in the Escalade following him. Frontieri accuses Lou of lying but lacks evidence. Later, Lou now has two vans (as Joe had) and hires a team of interns to expand his film business, telling them that he will not ask them to do anything he is unwilling to do himself.

Mathias/'Jim', a down-and-out New Yorker, travels to Paris planning to sell the large, valuable apartment in a coveted area he has inherited from his estranged father. Once there, he discovers an old woman, Mathilde, living in the apartment with her daughter Chloé. Jim quickly learns that the apartment is a " viager " – an ancient French system for buying and selling property – meaning he will not actually be in possession of it until Mathilde dies. Until then he owes her a life annuity of €2,400 a month. All this is a surprise to him, as his father never told him and Jim had communication problems with the French lawyer, who does not speak English. Jim has no money and no place to live, but Mathilde will allow him to stay in the apartment with her if he pays rent. However, to pay for the next life annuity payment, he takes and sells furniture from the apartment and also asks a prospective buyer of his contract for advance payments. Inquiring after Mathilde's health her doctor, one of her English students, tells Jim she is in excellent health. Chatting over dinner, he learns she also trades English lessons with the fishmonger. Mathilde asks him if he had visited France over the years, but he had not as his mother considered it to be enemy territory. The next day, Jim invites Chloé and developer François Roy to a café as he wants to discuss possibly selling part of the house by dividing it into two apartments. Neither likes the idea, so Jim asks for a modest deposit while he considers Roy's offer (his way of getting some cash). Discovering Chloé is going to dinner with her male companion, Jim follows her after class. She goes to a café, waving towards the man with whom Jim has seen her entering a hotel some days before. He waves her off, as he is going to dine with his wife and daughters. Observing this, Jim calls her out on it, trying to blackmail her to avoid paying the 2,400 euros. Mathias/Jim discovers that Mathilde and his father had a very long-lasting affair which had started seven years before he was born, while both were married (they could not afford to marry each other). Jim tries to make Mathilde see how her affair with his father affected him and his mother. He felt unloved and ignored, so he turned to drink and had a string of failed marriages. She had a string of failed suicides, finally succeeding when he was 19, which he saw upon his return from college. After meeting with Roy to accept the sale, Jim returns to the apartment. Finding a photo of himself and Chloé together at ten, Mathilde mentions it was the only time he has been there, and that his father stopped coming by after his mother died. Then Jim himself confesses to having slit his own wrists at 40, but although his father lived a few blocks away he did not visit. Upon reflection of how the adultery of their parents affected them emotionally, Chloé breaks off her affair. Both she and Jim recall and bond over their childhoods. At 10 she realised about her mother's affair, at the same time he was trying to prevent the first of many suicide attempts by his. The next day, Jim accepts the papers from Roy's lawyer, and Mathilde comes in, postulating that his mother must have known and approved of her affair with his father. When he divulges that she had 10 to 15 suicide attempts, the last being successful, she collapses from shock. Jim and Chloé have a moment and kiss, but then when she asks Mathilde if she shares a father with Jim, she says she is unsure. He overhears, so goes to run blood tests at the doctor's. Once Mathias/Jim gets the confirmation that he and Chloé are not related, as she wants to stay in the apartment, he decides at the last minute to decline Roy's multi-million Euro offer for the apartment/contract. Mathilde points out that they do not have to worry about money if they sell en viager, albeit they would receive a modest income due to their relatively young ages.

On the Polynesian island of Motunui, the inhabitants worship the goddess of nature, Te Fiti; a living island who, long ago, brought life to the ocean using a pounamu stone as her heart and the source of her power. One day, Maui, the shape-shifting demigod of the wind and sea and master of wayfinding, stole Te Fiti's heart to give humanity the power of creation. This caused Te Fiti to disintegrate, and Maui was attacked by Te Kā, a volcanic demon. Maui lost both the heart and his magic fish hook to the depths of the sea. A thousand years later, the ocean chooses Moana, the daughter of Motunui's chief Tui, to return the heart to Te Fiti. Tui and Sina, Moana's parents, try to keep her away from the ocean to prepare her to become the island's chief. Sixteen years later, blight strikes the island, killing vegetation and shrinking the fish catch. Moana suggests going beyond the island's reef with her pet pig, Pua, to find more fish and discover what is happening, but Tui forbids it. Moana tries conquering the reef, but is overpowered by the tides and shipwrecked. That afternoon, Moana's grandmother Tala shows her a secret cavern of ships and reveals Motunui's people were voyagers until Maui stole Te Fiti's heart; the ocean was no longer safe without it. Tala explains Te Kā's darkness is destroying the island, but can be cured if Moana finds Maui and has him restore the heart of Te Fiti. Having been given the heart by the ocean, Tala gives it to Moana. Tala later becomes gravely ill and tells Moana to find Maui. Moana sets sail on a camakau from the cavern along with her dimwitted pet rooster, Heihei, who stowed away on it. They are caught in a typhoon and shipwrecked on an island, where she finds Maui, who boasts about his achievements. She demands Maui return the heart, but he refuses and traps her in a cave before leaving on her boat. She escapes and confronts Maui, who reluctantly lets her on the camakau. They are attacked by Kakamora, coconut pirates who seek the heart, but Moana and Maui outwit them. Moana realizes Maui is no longer a hero since he stole the heart and cursed the world, and convinces him to redeem himself by returning the heart. However, Maui first needs to retrieve his fishhook in Lalotai, the Realm of Monsters, from Tamatoa, a giant coconut crab. While Moana distracts Tamatoa, Maui retrieves his hook, only to find himself unable to control his shape-shifting. He is overpowered by Tamatoa, but Moana's quick thinking allows them to escape with the hook. Maui reveals his first tattoo was earned when his human parents abandoned him as an infant, and the gods, taking pity on him, granted him his powers. After reassurance from Moana, Maui teaches her the art of way-finding, regaining control of his powers, and the two grow closer. They arrive at Te Fiti's island, only to be attacked by Te Kā. Moana refuses to turn back, resulting in Maui's hook being badly damaged. Unwilling to lose his hook again, Maui abandons Moana, who loses hope and tearfully asks the ocean to find someone else to restore the heart. The ocean obliges and takes the heart, but Tala's spirit appears, inspiring Moana to find her true calling. Moana retrieves the heart and sails back to confront Te Kā. Maui returns, having had a change of heart, and buys Moana time to reach Te Fiti by fighting Te Kā, destroying his hook in the process. Upon being unable to find Te Fiti, Moana realizes Te Kā is Te Fiti, but corrupted without her heart. The ocean clears a path for Moana, allowing her to return the heart to Te Fiti, who heals the ocean and islands of blight. Maui apologizes to Te Fiti, who fixes his hook as well as Moana's boat before falling into a deep sleep and becoming an island. Moana bids farewell to Maui and Te Fiti, returning home and reuniting with her parents. After placing a shell on top of the stack of stones placed by all previous chiefs, Moana takes up her role as chieftess and wayfinder, leading her people as they resume voyaging, accompanied by Maui.

High school senior Venus "Vee" Delmonico longs to leave Staten Island for college, but is reluctant to tell her single mother because they continue to mourn the recent death of Vee's older brother and the price of college. Her friend Sydney is popular on Nerve, an online reality game in which users either enlist as "players" or pay to watch as "watchers". Players accept dares given by the watchers in order to receive money and a spot in the final. After Sydney chastises Vee's unadventurous nature, Vee decides to sign up as a player on Nerve. Her first dare is to kiss a random stranger. At a diner, she kisses Ian, who dances and sings to Vee, revealing he is another player on a dare. The watchers dare Ian to take Vee to Manhattan, and together, they travel to Manhattan. After their first dare of trying on expensive clothes, the fear of her mom catching her in the city gets to her and she decides it's time to go back to Staten Island. However, with the encouragement of Ian to step out of her comfort zone, and the next dare's cash prize, Vee continues to play the game. Thus, together they complete several dares: Vee gets a tattoo, and Ian drives his motorcycle at 60 mph blindfolded. This, as well as Vee and Ian's chemistry, allows them to become two of the top players. Jealous of Vee's popularity on Nerve, Sydney accepts a dare at a party to cross a ladder between two buildings, but she bails during the dare and is eliminated from Nerve. Vee arrives at the party and catches Sydney making out with J.P, a boy Vee has a crush on. As they argue, Vee discovers from her hacker friend Tommy that Ian was dared into bringing Vee to the party and incite an argument between her and Sydney. Vee receives a dare to complete Sydney's dare of crossing the ladder between the two buildings, which she completes. Realizing how dangerous Nerve is, Vee attempts to report the game to the police but is disbelieved. As a result, all of the money in her and her mother's joint bank account is removed. Nerve player Ty knocks Vee out in order to keep her in the game. Vee wakes up in a shipping container, where she finds Ian, who confesses that he and Ty were players whose friend was killed in a dare in Seattle. When they tried to alert the authorities, their families' jobs, bank accounts, and identities were compromised. Vee has joined them in the secret third category of the game: "prisoners". If a prisoner can reach and win the day's final round, they regain everything. Tommy and Sydney work with Tommy's hacker friends to try and disable Nerve by altering the game's online code. They hope to prevent Vee from playing the game, but since all of the watchers' phones and profiles act as a distributed server, they cannot completely disable Nerve. Vee wins a spot in the final of Nerve, and Ian completes a dare to also gain a spot in the final, which takes place at Battery Weed. At the final, Vee and Ian are dared to shoot each other with guns, which they both refuse to do. Ty then takes Ian's place in the final and proposes a vote on whether or not he should shoot Vee. The watchers vote yes by a majority, to which Ty shoots Vee, who seemingly dies in Ian's arms. Tommy and his hackers are able to modify Nerve ' s source code to decrypt the watchers' usernames into their real names and send them a message: "You are an accessory to murder." The panicked watchers log out of the game, closing all the servers and ending Nerve. Despondent over Vee's apparent death, Ian aims his gun at Ty, but Vee stops him, revealing that she and Ty staged her murder to scare the watchers into shutting down their profiles on Nerve and ending it permanently. Tommy and his hackers manage to restore the money to all of the players. As Vee and Ian watch the sunrise, he reveals his true name to be Sam. A few months later, Vee and Sydney have reconciled, while Vee and Sam are a couple. Vee is attending the California Institute of the Arts and asks Sam to come and see her in person.

Four wealthy friends meet for a retreat amidst growing global upheaval caused by AI-generated disinformation, produced and disseminated via fictional social media platform Traam. Among them are Venis "Ven" Parish, owner of Traam and the world's richest person; Jeff Abredazi, owner of Bilter, a company specializing in AI; Randall Garrett, an older member and mentor of the group who has recently received an incurable cancer diagnosis; and Hugo "Souper" Van Yalk, who, because of his $521 million net worth, is significantly less wealthy than his multi-billionaire friends. The retreat takes place at Souper's new remote Utah mountain home, dubbed "Mountainhead" (in reference to Ayn Rand 's novel The Fountainhead). Though the gathering is ostensibly an opportunity for the four men to reconnect as friends (dubbed the "Brewsters") without the interference of their usual business concerns, all four have their own ulterior motives. Ven, having fast-tracked new features to Traam that enabled the disinformation to spread, wishes to acquire Bilter for its fact-checking technology to avoid rescinding the new features and taking accountability. Randall wishes to see Traam continue to grow and progress, believing Ven's ventures could lead to a transhumanist solution for his illness. Jeff sees his net worth skyrocket as the turmoil worsens due to Bilter's fact-checking abilities, and does not want his company subsumed into Traam. Souper, feeling inferior for never having made a billion dollars, wishes to petition the others to invest in Slowzo, his "lifestyle super-app". The group tries to settle into the gathering, but soon after arriving Jeff and Ven begin arguing over Traam's effects, before the rest of them try to pressure Jeff into selling Bilter. They later snowmobile to and walk up a nearby mountain range, before conducting a Brewster ritual where they write their net worth on their chests in lipstick (ranked Ven, Randall, Jeff, and Souper). When they return, they realize the worldwide chaos caused by Traam has become worse and governments are beginning to falter, and the four get increasingly combative and exasperated. After Bilter's stock surges again, Jeff's net worth outranks Randall's, and Randall flips out on Jeff for making a big deal out of swapping Brewster hats. After Ven has a call with the President where he rebuffs attempts to either roll back or limit Traam's features, Ven, Randall, and Souper decide to use their influence to accelerate the chaos in an attempt to bring about a global technocratic dictatorship. Jeff privately approaches Randall, who is one of Traam's biggest investors, with a proposal to wrest control of the company from Ven and cooperate with the US government's desires to install security measures. Randall, believing Jeff's plan will ruin his hope of surviving cancer, discloses the scheme to Ven and Souper, and the three of them conceive a tenuous plot to kill Jeff and take control of Bilter. After two bungled attempts on his life by the other three, Jeff leads them on a chase through the house, eventually hiding out in the sauna. He is found and barricaded in by the others, who prepare to immolate him with gasoline. In desperation, Jeff hastily drafts the terms of an agreement to sign Bilter over to Traam, with the others agreeing to release him after working out the details. The next morning, Jeff is released after the contract is signed and awkwardly confronts his unapologetic friends at breakfast. The three also admit that they have lost interest in their plan to launch coups against multiple governments. As he prepares to leave Mountainhead, Jeff has a private conversation with Ven telling him he will try to fight the deal. Ven then asks him to do the deal legitimately, to which Jeff agrees on the condition that Randall be excluded. Jeff tells Ven that he believes Traam will fail even with Bilter's help, while Ven professes faith in his company. Jeff tells Ven if he does become part of Ven's company, he will eventually try to force Ven out, to which Ven replies, that is what makes it exciting. Randall witnesses the end of this exchange from afar, and rides away from Mountainhead looking dejected. The film comes to a close with Souper, having finally achieved billionaire status through the deal with Jeff, overlooking the scenery of the mountains surrounding his home while following a meditation exercise on Slowzo.

In a fictional outcome for the 2015 Canadian federal election, a political party comes to power and establishes a law called S-14. This legislation allows parents of troubled children with limited finances to place their children in hospitals, without regard for fundamental justice. Diane "Die" Després, a widowed mother and 46-year-old advice columnist, picks up her son Steve from an institution. Steve, who has ADHD and an attachment disorder, was being discharged after starting a fire in which another youth was injured. Die brings Steve to their new home in Saint-Hubert and struggles to care for him under financial distress. When Steve gives her a cart full of groceries and a necklace reading "Mommy", Die suspects that he has stolen the items. Enraged by the accusation, Steve begins choking her, and she defends herself by hitting him with a glass frame. Whilst chaos ensues, Kyla, a neighbour and teacher on sabbatical, shows up to tend to Steve's wounds. Kyla, who is dealing with a stuttering problem and recently moved into the area with her husband and daughter, begins to tutor Steve. After a disastrous tutoring session where Steve goads Kyla, she snaps and attacks him. After the confrontation, Steve mellows and indicates he is glad to know her and respects her boundaries and expectations. Kyla notes Steve reminds her of her late son. The three have bonded and their situation improves: Die has a cleaning job and translation work on the side, Kyla's speech problem is resolving, and Steve is receiving better marks on his school work. All is looking up, until Die is served papers by the parents of the injured boy, indicating she and Steve are being sued for the injuries caused by his fire. Die finds a lawyer, a neighbour and a potential love interest, who is willing to help them with Steve's case. The three of them go out to a karaoke restaurant for the evening. Over the night, Steve is increasingly agitated by the atmosphere and what he sees as his mother's sexual interest in the lawyer. Steve decides to sing, but is taunted by the audience, leading to a fight. They are thrown out. Steve, Die and their lawyer argue, ending with Die slapping the lawyer in retaliation for him slapping Steve, driving the lawyer away. Die in turn shouts at Steve for continually being an issue in her life, whereupon Steve runs away. He returns the following morning. Die continues to try and help her son and rebuild their lives, but while out shopping with Steve and Kyla, Steve disappears. He is found by Kyla after slitting his wrists. Although he survives, Die comes to realise she is running out of options. One day Die and Kyla surprise Steve with a picnic, and on the drive Die finds herself reflecting on all the dreams she had for her son to live a fulfilled, happy life. The trio end up not at a picnic site as the faux ending implies, but at a hospital to commit Steve under S-14. Upon realising the deception by the two women, Steve angrily resists attempts to apprehend him by hospital staff. Die begins to regret the decision when she helplessly watches the officials use violence and tasers to subdue him. Kyla announces she is moving to Toronto and Die encourages her. Kyla is relieved Die is not upset. While explaining how much she enjoyed her time with Die and Steve, she accidentally makes a faux-pas about 'abandoning her family'. Die responds that she holds on to hope that her life and the life she envisages for her son will come to fruition. Kyla returns home as Die privately breaks down in tears. While preparing dinner and doing translation work, Die misses a phone call from Steve. Back at the hospital, Steve, restrained in a straitjacket, apologises to his mother in a voicemail. Immediately after the straps of his jacket are removed by two officials, Steve runs full speed towards a large, bright window.

CIA Officer James Silva leads a top secret CIA Special Activities Division unit, code-named Overwatch, to infiltrate a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) safe house in the United States. Under the supervision of James Bishop, Overwatch's mission is to locate and destroy shipments of caesium before the highly toxic substance can be weaponized to kill thousands. The unit kills the occupants, while Overwatch Agent Alice Kerr is wounded. One of the Russians, an 18-year-old named Anatole Kuragin, falls out of a window during an explosion after failing to save the caesium. Silva executes Kuragin despite his pleading, and everyone escapes. Sixteen months later, Indocarr (a fictional country loosely based on Indonesia) police officer Li Noor surrenders at the United States Embassy to negotiate for passage out of the country in exchange for information on the remaining caesium. Kerr vouches for Noor's reliability as an asset, but he refuses to reveal the password to an encrypted, self-destroying disc until he is safely on a plane. While Noor is being tested, Kerr tries to come to terms with her family issues. Axel, leading a team from the Indocarr State Intelligence Agency, arrives at the embassy and demands that Noor be handed over as Noor fends off an assassination attempt by Indocarr government agents. Overwatch Agent Sam Snow and Kerr arrive, shocked at his combat prowess, learning that Noor used to be Indocarr Special Forces. Silva agrees to take Noor to an airplane 22 miles away. Noor reveals he is turning on the corrupt Indocarr government because it killed his family. Bishop's surveillance feed blacks out, then comes on again. During the blackout, Axel's men place a bomb on the car, which explodes. While Silva's unit helps fend off Axel's men, Sam is mortally injured. Silva gives Sam two grenades and leaves her, letting her suicide-attack the remaining henchmen. Silva, Noor, Kerr, and another Overwatch Agent, William Douglas, enter a restaurant. Silva sees Axel and walks toward him despite Bishop's orders. Axel tells James to give up Noor, but James refuses. While returning, he brushes past two girls and realizes that there is a grenade in the restaurant; he tackles civilians before it explodes. When the dust clears, Douglas is severely wounded, and Silva is attacked by the girls. Noor helps Silva kill them. While going to a safe house, Douglas dies while holding off Axel's men. After taking cover in an apartment complex, Kerr is separated and meets a young girl. Kerr and the girl escape harm by using booby-trapped grenades. Silva and Noor split up, fighting Axel and his henchmen. Silva and Noor meet up again, as well as the young girl Kerr saved. She leads them to Kerr, who is losing against a henchman, until Noor kills him. On the way to the air strip, the remaining team members briefly confront Axel. Exasperated, Silva has Overwatch destroy his car with a drone strike. The team barely makes it to the airplane. Li Noor boards the airplane, along with Kerr who is going to meet her family once again. While on the airplane, Bishop notices Noor's heart rate is accelerating, and it is revealed that Noor is not a double agent, but a triple agent working for the Russian government, and Kuragin was the son of a high-ranking official within that government. The official hired Noor to give Alice the wrong information, so they would trust him. Just as Alice realizes this, Bishop's Overwatch surveillance team is raided. The entire team is shot and Bishop walks outside to die. Silva refuses to acknowledge that Alice is killed on the plane. Silva realizes this too late and details his experiences during a post-mission debriefing. Back at home, Silva puts up Noor's picture, vowing revenge.

As a child during Nazi-era Germany, Kurt Barnert (inspired by Gerhard Richter) visits an exhibit of Degenerate Art in Dresden with his beautiful young aunt Elisabeth. While there, he is mesmerized by Girl with Blue Hair, a modernist sculpture by Eugen Hoffmann. At a Nazi Party rally, Elisabeth – a member of the National Socialist Women's League – is given the honour of personally presenting a bouquet of flowers to Adolf Hitler. Later that day at home, Kurt walks in on a nude Elisabeth playing Bach's music on the piano. She tells a startled Kurt to "never look away" because "everything that is true holds beauty in it." Elisabeth then begins hitting a single piano note repeatedly, rambling euphorically that she is "playing a concert for the Führer", and then begins deliriously hitting herself on the head with a broken ashtray. Elisabeth is diagnosed with schizophrenia, and is sterilized and later murdered under the Nazi euthanasia program. The doctor who orders her sterilization and death is gynecologist Professor Carl Seeband, a high-ranking member of the SS medical corps. After the war, Seeband is arrested by the Soviets and placed in a prison camp, facing likely execution. While there, he volunteers to assist a Red Army officer's wife during a complicated birth and saves the lives of both wife and child. The grateful Soviet officer releases Seeband and thereafter helps to keep evidence of his Nazi past from catching up with him. As an adult, Kurt studies painting at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, where he falls in love with a young fashion design student named Elisabeth (like his aunt), whom he calls Ellie. She is the daughter of Professor Seeband, though none of them are aware of their shared history and connection. Kurt excels in his studies, but is forced to complete paintings that reflect socialist realism, an ideology and school of art with which he does not identify. Eventually, he meets Ellie's father, who is now toeing the East German socialist party line. Seeband sees Kurt as genetically inferior to, and therefore unsuitable for, his daughter, and goes to great lengths to sabotage the young couple's relationship, even performing an abortion on Elisabeth based on a made-up health concern when she becomes pregnant with Kurt's child. However, the young couple's love strengthens and eventually the two get married. Fearing prosecution after the Soviet officer who had been protecting him is transferred to Moscow, Seeband flees East Germany for West Germany. Kurt and Ellie flee to West Germany themselves several years later. Since Kurt is already 30 years old, he lies about his age to be admitted to the famous Düsseldorf Art Academy, where he is able to study and practice art more freely than he could in East Germany. His teacher, Professor Antonius van Verten (based on Joseph Beuys) recognizes Kurt's deep personal experience, but also sees that he is struggling to find his own voice, having been trained only in figurative painting, a medium considered outdated and bourgeois by the standards of the school. Kurt shares adjoining studio space with fellow student and confidant Harry Preusser (inspired by Günther Uecker), who experiments with hammering nails into boards to produce large artworks. Only when Kurt finds a newspaper article about a captured Nazi doctor who was Seeband's superior does he have his artistic breakthrough. He starts using his figurative painting skills to copy black-and-white photographs onto canvases, adding a mysterious sfumato blur. Among the sources for the new paintings are Seeband's passport photographs and photographs of Kurt with Aunt Elisabeth from his own family album. When Seeband sees a painting that is a collage of himself, the captured Nazi doctor, and Kurt with Elisabeth, he abruptly leaves the studio. It is unclear if he is simply overwhelmed at being reminded of his past, just realized Elisabeth was Kurt's relative, or believes his son-in-law has uncovered his secret, but Kurt, for his part, still seems to be unaware of the connection. After years of infertility due to the abortion, Ellie becomes pregnant, and Kurt celebrates the moment she told him by painting her nude. Some time later, he gets his first art show, where his art impresses the critics, even though they completely misunderstand and misinterpret it. He rejoices in finally finding his voice and his place in the world.

In 2011, astronauts Brian Harper, Jocinda "Jo" Fowler, and Alan Marcus are on a Space Shuttle mission to repair a satellite. A mysterious swarm of alien technology attacks the orbiter, killing Alan and knocking Jo unconscious before tunneling into the surface of the Moon. Brian, the only witness to the swarm, returns the crippled shuttle to Earth, but his story is dismissed, and he is fired from NASA. Ten years later, conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman, who believes that the Moon is an artificial megastructure, surreptitiously gains access to a research telescope. He discovers that the Moon's orbit is veering closer to Earth. He tries to share his findings with Brian. NASA also discovers the anomaly. K.C. anonymously announces his observation on social media, which leads to a global panic. Jo, now NASA's deputy director, launches a spacecraft on an SLS Block 1B+ rocket to investigate the abnormality. After the astronauts drop a probe into a miles-deep artificial shaft that has opened up on the Moon's surface, the alien swarm attacks, killing all three lunar astronauts. The lunar orbit continues to decay, and as the Moon falls closer and closer to the Earth, seismic and gravitational disturbances occur. Jo meets former NASA official Holdenfield, who reveals that Brian was discredited because of a NASA coverup dating back to Apollo 11. During the first Moon landing, a two-minute radio blackout was meant to conceal evidence of pulsating lights on the Moon's surface. Apollo 12 revealed that the Moon is hollow. A military electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device was created to eliminate the swarm, but the project was abandoned for budgetary reasons. With help from her ex-husband General Doug Davidson, Air Force Chief of Staff, Jo requisitions the EMP and commandeers retired Space Shuttle Endeavour from a museum to serve the new mission: to correct the Moon's orbit and destroy the swarm. Brian, K.C., and Jo launch with the EMP, using the Moon's gravity, narrowly escaping to orbit as a tsunami destroys Vandenberg Air Force Base. They reach the interior of the Moon, revealed to be a Dyson sphere powered by a white dwarf at its center. The Dyson sphere's AI operating system explains to Brian that billions of years ago, the technologically advanced ancestors of modern humans created the AI swarm to serve them, but upon becoming self aware, it went rogue and they were eradicated by it. They built the Moon as an interstellar ark to create the Earth and then seed life on it, but the AI swarm discovered it and began siphoning energy from its power source, destabilizing its orbit. Meanwhile, Brian's son Sonny, Jo's son Jimmy, and Jimmy's caretaker Michelle try to reach Doug's military bunker in the Colorado mountains. They find Brian's ex-wife and Sonny's mother Brenda, her husband Tom, and their family. They avoid disasters caused by the Moon's proximity and fight other hostile survivors, then reach safety in a mountain tunnel. As the Moon strips away the local atmosphere, Tom's youngest daughter runs out of oxygen. The injured Tom gives her his own supply; he suffocates to death. The President of the United States orders a nuclear strike on the approaching Moon, but Doug refuses to comply, with debris collapsing the bunker shortly thereafter, apparently killing everyone inside. As the swarm attacks all electronic objects containing organic life inside, K.C. lures the swarm away from their spacecraft with their lunar module, sacrificing himself to detonate the EMP. Jo and Brian return to Earth, reuniting with their families, and the Moon's power is restored, returning to its regular orbit, but now shed of its rocky exterior. Reconstructing K.C.'s consciousness, the Moon's operating system appears to K.C. as his cat Fuzz Aldrin and his mother, who remarks that they must now "get started".